“Sergio won’t be available for at least another week,” said Mancini. “He should make the game against Fulham but we won’t risk him against Arsenal. He should be ready by next weekend.”

There was better news about Aleksandar Kolarov who the City boss confirmed is available for the trip to the Emirates Stadium.

Mancini said Sunday would be the perfect time to end the Blues' 37-year wait for a victory away to Arsenal, adding: "We want to end this run, but it will be very difficult because Arsenal are a very good team.

"We are missing a number of important players but we can go there and come away with a good result. We are seven points behind United at present but I don't feel we deserve to be so many points behind, but this is football.

"Our strikers have been coming back into form again and scoring goals and we will need them to keep doing that. Sometimes you go through a period when you don't score so many but we have scored ten in our last three games so things are improving."